Young And Wild CD

This is hot stuff, through and through, 30 first-rate rock & roll songs of which more than 20 are choice pieces of lost rock & roll history. Al Hendrix's "Young and Wild" kicks things off in top gear and Ron Berry's frantic rockabilly "I'll Give You All My Love" throws the collection into overdrive. Tommy Cassel ("Go Ahead On"), Frankie and Margie ("Bop Guitar") who sound like the Collins Kids, and the Nite Caps' dizzyingly frantic instrumental "Wildcat" are all seminal piece of rock & roll. Bill Carter's "I Wanna Feel Good" sounds a bit too much like the kinds of songs that Elvis was doing in his early movies, but given that those movies were cool, that's okay. Everett Pauley's "Little Girl," Bob Calloway's "Tick Tock" (a "Splish Splash" rip-off that works) Ron Strawn's "Drivin'," and "My Baby Is Gone" by Cleve Warnock all rock hard, but the big surprise here is "A-Bomp Bop" by Mike Fern (whose real name was apparently Fernandez); he sounds like he's on speed, and he could've revolutionized Hispanic rock & roll like nobody's business if this record had only gotten played. And then there's a fellow named Jericho Jones, who sounds like late '50s Elvis only a little cooler, and Buck Trail, who's "Chattanooga Drummer Man" could've been a swing number a decade earlier. Johnny Watson's "I'm Not Crazy," by contrast, sounds more like the early Elvis at Sun, while Jerry Parsons' "Don't Need No Job" could've been Jerry Lee Lewis (sans ivories) in an alternate reality. Hank LeGault's "I Knew" is one of the funniest and most physical descriptions of rock & roll rejection anyone ever committed to record. Except for one harmony number by the Smith Brothers (who were no Everlys), the rest -- Gary Hodge ("Not for Love or Money"), Lucky Plank ("Hey Hey Baby," one of the few sub-standard sounding tracks on this disc or from this label), Mack Banks ("Be-Boppin' Daddy") -- are a rockabilly buff's dream. ~ Bruce Eder

30 tracks w. Ron Strawn, Ron Berry, Aubrey Cagle, Claude King+